From around 700 AD, West African groups known as 'Moors' or 'blackamoors' moved into Europe, which was then in its 'Dark Ages', and promoted civilization and development there for a thousand years, culminating around the 1700s.

In those centuries, Africa was a prosperous continent with beautiful cities, with large public buildings and universities, a self-sufficient economy, and a working political system of monarchs held to account by powerful councils of chiefs and elders.

The Moors took this magnificent black civilization to Europe, and their contributions led that continent into its 'Renaissance', which was a harbinger for the Industrial Revolution that was to follow.

The Moors were kings, queens, soldiers, politicians, priests, teachers, architects, doctors, administrators, and artisans throughout Europe.

This ancient statue is on a public building in Portugal. It shows an African king that ruled the country in Europe's 'Middle Ages'.


Moor figure at Mohrenhaus, Moor's House, Obere Bruecke 14, Bamberg, Upper Franconia, Bavaria


This is in Spain


ctd..

Educative post!

Add “Regina Daniels” to topic, and it will hit front page

CoronaVirusRelo:
Educative post!

Add “Regina Daniels” to topic, and it will hit front page

lol...or Tonto Dike.

There is a huge gap in history that has not been discovered.
One of which is why did Africa achieve this a long time ago and later became so primitive and backward?

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ROYALTY

chrisxxx:
There is a huge gap in history that has not been discovered.
One of which is why did Africa achieve this a long time ago and later became so primitive and backward?

Your first mistake is assuming that 'Africa' ever had uniform development or underdevelopment.

Africa is a very huge place, and there was never a time it was entirely ''primitive and backward'' or entirely ''civilized and advanced''.

At the time we had universities in Timbuktu, around the 12th century, and it had students from as far away as Turkey attending, we also had Masai tribesmen in Kenya living in 'primitive' conditions.

When Benin City in the 1500s was being described by European visitors as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, complete with large public buildings, streetlights (powered by palm oil), and underground drainage, its emperor exchanging ambassadors with Portugal, and administering a sophisticated bureaucracy, we also had at the very same time, remote farm villages with naked children running around.

So Africa has never been a uniform place. It is too big and diverse for that.

That being said, we can trace the fall of African dominance and independence to European leaders' decision to mass produce guns and bombs after copying Chinese gunpowder mixtures starting from the late 1600s.

It was the introduction of firearms that allowed the west to conquer a world it had previously no power over, a world that had used iron weapons for thousands of years prior.

European firearms were the big game-changer.

With that, they could invade, enslave, colonise, and loot resources with ease all over the world.

From page worthy. Just knowing this.

Interesting post.

Add Hanks Anuku e go hit FP

Napata77:


This is in Spain


ctd..

That is not Spain, that is Shaffhausen, Switzerland. The statue is of the Moorish King Kaspar.

wow

cool

hodari:

That is not Spain, that is Shaffhausen, Switzerland. The statue is of the Moorish King Kaspar.

Thanks for the correction.

I see you are familiar with the research.

Alessandro de' Medici (Duke of Florence) and his mother Simonetta da Collevecchio

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15 Things You Did Not Know About the Moors of Spain

1. The Spanish occupation by the Moors began in 711 AD when an African army, under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa and invaded the Iberian peninsula ‘Andalus’ (Spain under the Visigoths).

2. A European scholar sympathetic to the Spaniards remembered the Moorish conquest in this way:

a. ''The reins of their horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night . . . The noble Goths [the German rulers of Spain to whom Roderick belonged] were broken in an hour, quicker than tongue can tell. Oh luckless Spain!

Quoted in Edward Scobie, The Moors and Portugal’s Global Expansion, in Golden Age of the Moor, ed Ivan Van Sertima, US, Transaction Publishers, 1992, p.336

3. The Moors, who ruled Spain for 800 years, introduced new scientific techniques to Europe, such as an astrolabe, a device for measuring the position of the stars and planets. Scientific progress in Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Geography and Philosophy flourished in Moorish Spain.

4. Basil Davidson, one of the most noted historians recognized and declared that there were no lands at that time (the eighth century) “more admired by its neighbours, or more comfortable to live in, than a rich African civilization which took shape in Spain”

5. At its height, Córdova, the heart of Moorish territory in Spain, was the most modern city in Europe. The streets were well-paved, with raised sidewalks for pedestrians. During the night, ten miles of streets were well illuminated by lamps. (This was hundreds of years before there was a paved street in Paris or a street lamp in London.) Cordova had 900 public baths – we are told that a poor Moor would go without bread rather than soap!

6. The Great Mosque of Córdoba (La Mezquita) is still one of the architectural wonders of the world in spite of later Spanish disfigurements. Its low scarlet and gold roof, supported by 1,000 columns of marble, jasper and and porphyry, was lit by thousands of brass and silver lamps which burned perfumed oil.

7. Education was universal in Moorish Spain, available to all, while in Christian Europe ninety-nine percent of the population were illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. At that time, Europe had only two universities, the Moors had seventeen great universities! These were located in Almeria, Cordova, Granada, Juen, Malaga, Seville, and Toledo.

8. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, public libraries in Europe were non-existent, while Moorish Spain could boast of more than seventy, of which the one in Cordova housed six hundred thousand manuscripts.

9. Over 4,000 Arabic words and Arabic-derived phrases have been absorbed into the Spanish language. Words beginning with “al,” for example, are derived from Arabic. Arabic words such as algebra, alcohol, chemistry, nadir, alkaline, and cipher entered the language. Even words such as checkmate, influenza, typhoon, orange, and cable can be traced back to Arabic origins.

10. The most significant Moorish musician was known as Ziryab (the Blackbird) who arrived in Spain in 822. The Moors introduced earliest versions of several instruments, including the Lute or el oud, the guitar or kithara and the Lyre. Ziryab changed the style of eating by breaking meals into separate courses beginning with soup and ending with desserts.

11. The Moors introduced paper to Europe and Arabic numerals, which replaced the clumsy Roman system.

12. The Moors introduced many new crops including the orange, lemon, peach, apricot, fig, sugar cane, dates, ginger and pomegranate as well as saffron, sugar cane, cotton, silk and rice which remain some of Spain’s main products today.

13. The Moorish rulers lived in sumptuous palaces, while the monarchs of Germany, France, and England dwelt in big barns, with no windows and no chimneys, and with only a hole in the roof for the exit of smoke. One such Moorish palace ‘Alhambra’ (literally “the red one”) in Granada is one of Spain’s architectural masterpieces. Alhambra was the seat of Muslim rulers from the 13th century to the end of the 15th century. The Alhambra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

14. It was through Africa that the new knowledge of China, India, and Arabia reached Europe. The Moors brought the Compass from China into Europe.

15. The Moors ruled and occupied Lisbon (named “Lashbuna” by the Moors) and the rest of the country until well into the twelfth century. They were finally defeated and driven out by the forces of King Alfonso Henriques. The scene of this battle was the Castelo de Sao Jorge or the ‘Castle of St. George.’

https://blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15-facts-on-the-moors-in-spain/

Napata77:


Your first mistake is assuming that 'Africa' ever had uniform development or underdevelopment.

Africa is a very huge place, and there was never a time it was entirely ''primitive and backward'' or entirely ''civilized and advanced''.

At the time we had universities in Timbuktu, around the 12th century, and it had students from as far away as Turkey attending, we also had Masai tribesmen in Kenya living in 'primitive' conditions.

When Benin City in the 1500s was being described by European visitors as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, complete with large public buildings, streetlights (powered by palm oil), and underground drainage, its emperor exchanging ambassadors with Portugal, and administering a sophisticated bureaucracy, we also had at the very same time, remote farm villages with naked children running around.

So Africa has never been a uniform place. It is too big and diverse for that.

That being said, we can trace the fall of African dominance and independence to European leaders' decision to mass produce guns and bombs after copying Chinese gunpowder mixtures starting from the late 1600s.

It was the introduction of firearms that allowed the west to conquer a world it had previously no power over, a world that had used iron weapons for thousands of years prior.

European firearms were the big game-changer.

With that, they could invade, enslave, colonise, and loot resources with ease all over the world.

I see. Even the civilization of Benin did not exceed mud houses.

chrisxxx:

I see. Even the civilization of Benin did not exceed mud houses.

No civilization of the medieval world ''exceeded mud houses''. Greece, Rome, Babylon, Victorian England, the Aztecs, all had rural communities living in huts and cottages, same time as they had the nobility living in palaces in cities. Same in Africa.

In fact if you visit rural England TODAY, you will still see old thatched roof houses they've been able to spruce up because of their wealth (and lack of an externally influenced inferiority complex that would make them replace them with 'modern', 'civilized' roofing as in our case, when we make a little money).

And because they take pride in their heritage and don't see thatched roofs as a sign of ''poverty, underdevelopment and primitivity'', but actually value them, these houses below cost more than many modern houses in the UK.





https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-thatched-cottages-south-devon-image37497104

The only reason much of rural Nigeria doesn't look like the above is that our people have been brainwashed to discredit their heritage, and to believe that only a total discarding of the traditional ways and a complete replacement with 'western' styles constitutes 'progress'.

No in-betweens or blending old and new.

So they will sit unhappily in an unkempt, unpainted thatched house, with no thought to improve it, while saving for years, or going into crime or corruption to obtain huge amounts of money to build a duplex, when all they really needed to do was spruce up the house.

Some of these thatched huts you're seeing above, if you enter them, you'll think you're in a five star hotel.

God bless Africans

What killed African's development is greed

Nice..

But we should be thinking more about the future than the past.
I get am before nor be property.